Shine on you crazy diamond

The PG music is the best part. Gosh, this is funny. Click "Watch now!," in green. Sorry about the premercial.

I see the NYT has picked up on this too, and that it's sort of old news now. But I advise watching before reading.

A Monday Night Party!

I was Hank Williams Jr. for Halloween.

And you?


FMFM: XTC's Skylarking, to which I've returned a million times over the years. Todd Rundgren's production adds lushness without really giving in to the awful tendencies of 1986. Andy and Colin somehow pulled a vague concept album out of songs about female superheroes, bugs in brandy, rainstorms and love al fresco. And "Season Cycle," the one that pulls the concept together, finds the band at its most obscenely hooky, with some of the best backing vocals in their history. (I do wish my copy had "Mermaid Smiled," though.) One hundred points.

Capturing the McMartins

If you've seen Capturing the Friedmans, this story will certainly ring familiar. I remember the McMartin case from the 1980s. It must have been huge in Los Angeles at the time.

Like being branded a racist, being accused of child molestation poisons the well forever. Even if the allegations are proven false, it's hard to bounce back. Who knew these accusations could snowball into such huge witch hunts? With such flimsy evidence? I remember wondering during the Friedmans film if it was really possible that people were all that crazed about so-called sex rings. But the Times story does seem to prove that it's not only possible, but it's likely that aggressive interrogation of children can produce these unreliable results.

Disc Two of the Friedmans DVD adds a lot to the story, by the way. Don't skip it. It's the rare bonus DVD that isn't almost completely a waste of time.

She's just looking for the perfect wave

"You can't overestimate the intelligence of people out there."

I remember being surprised at the signs at Point Lobos too. They're a little dramatic, sure, but apparently people need that kind of warning. The Pacific's not like the Atlantic or the Gulf of Mexico. It's not a lake. And you definitely don't want to end up like the bassist from Loverboy.


FMFM: Thelonious Monk Plays Duke Ellington. I hate to break out that word "genius" again, but there are times when it's still useful. Anyone who can apply his incredible technique to brilliant compositions like these, make them come out dramatic, amusing, joyful and sorrowful (sometimes within a single piece), and still sound like absolutely no one else ever did, deserves it.

It was an honor just being nominated

That didn't take long to appear....

Say hey

With the news that the name of SBC Park -- née Pacific Bell Park -- will be changed once again to something like AT&T Park, the drumbeat for "Mays Field" as common parlance for the Giants' stadium will surely become louder.

Although it was before my time, I believe one of the San Francisco daily newspapers consistently refused to refer to Candlestick Park by its corporate-sponsored name, simply referring to contests taking place "at Candlestick Point." (As far as I know, nobody says "Monster Park" now.) To most fans, the A's play at "the Coliseum." It seems that the backlash against stadium naming rights often requires a little creativity, but the battle for the public tongue is winnable.

I think the saddest one of all is the former Brendan Byrne Arena, in the New Jersey Meadowlands. They took someone's name off the building while he was still alive. (And he still is!) Ouch.


FMFM: The Arcade Fire's Funeral, which after a half-dozen spins over several months has not improved in my estimation. But for a few nice crescendos, I find myself either waiting for something interesting to happen, or actively deciding to turn down or turn off the record. Possibly I can see it as cerebrally engaging, and I don't really doubt its heart. But only rarely can I see something in it that I would actually enjoy, if I bothered to spend more time with it. And is that an outright theft from the Feelies at the end of track three?

Bluer than blue

Almost a year ago -- that's eons in blog years -- I spotlighted those terrifyingly cute white supremacist pre-teen performers known as Prussian Blue. Although they're back in the news again, a year older and wiser, it doesn't look like they've got anything new to say, except that they've released a DVD and launched a new Web site. Uh, good for them, I guess.

But what about the poor English bastards who are also called Prussian Blue? Oh man. What a mistake that name is turning out to be.


FMFM: R.L. Burnside's crude, explosive A Ass Pocket Of Whiskey

And then they wrote

One more song that starts with "and": "Once in a Lifetime," of course.


FMFM: Miles Davis's On The Corner, which does have its thin spots but is really an interesting soundscape. Can't imagine Aquemini without it.

He gone

"That goes double for you, Pierzynski."


FMFM: The New Pornographers' deliciously hooky "Sing Me Spanish Techno," "Use It," and "Star Bodies," from Twin Cinema

I'd just as soon be in Boone

One of my favorite places in the U.S. gets a 36-hour nod from the NYT's travel section.

I saw Willie Nelson play there once, at sundown. Everything was perfect.


FMFM: The chatty horn play on Bob Brookmeyer & Friends. Who knew he had such great friends? And who knew he was married to Margo Guryan?

iCrAoLnE&XwIiCnOe

"Drawing inspiration from the carnival-like offerings of Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue and the execution of performances in The Band's Last Waltz, the two settled on a spirit for the tour. Simply put -- book the show, have the two bands there and ready to go at show time, invite friends down and ask them to come out for a few songs. Give it structure, but don't rob it of any spontaneity.... No one really knows what lies ahead, but we guarantee it will be unlike anything making the rounds this fall."

That was the pitch for last night's Calexico/Iron & Wine affair at the Warfield Theater, the old high-ceilinged house on one of the roughest blocks of Market Street. Although it's a beautiful theater in many ways, I normally don't enjoy seeing shows there. I behave myself at live music events, and I'm not into being frisked at the door and prodded around by people constantly telling me where I can and cannot stand. Plus a portion of my ticket price goes to Clear Channel, whom I don't want to support.

I'm rather happy that security got to the ticket-buyer who tried to physically remove comic Neil Hamburger from the stage, however. It wasn't because I was enjoying his act, exactly, although I have to admit that the cumulative effect of his intentionally awful jokes was starting to build into something approaching amusement. I was much more interested in the open hostility between Hamburger and the crowd of perhaps two thousand people, the vast majority of whom wanted him to get off the stage ASAP. The most exciting part of his vulgar, terrible joke-telling bit was the period when it wasn't clear whether he would remain onstage to continue taking abuse from the crowd, or would cave to their increasingly vocal wishes. Thrown plastic bottles were one thing; the woman who climbed up and went for Neil was another. She apparently got a glass of whiskey in the face and an ejection from the theater prior to the main event.

Calexico's own set was unusual. Anchored by a few of their bread-and-butter pieces -- "Sonic Wind," "Stray," "Crystal Frontier" -- the list included about four new songs and a cover of Love's "Alone Again Or." I've always felt that they were born to play the Love song, but somehow I feel like they've never quite nailed it. (The version on Convict Pool is definitely disappointing.) The new material seems to avoid intentionally the mariachi-rock from the band's earlier records (Black Light, Hot Rail etc), and shoots for a different rhythmic thing -- more folk-rock, perhaps -- that isn't quite so atmospheric. All of it was good, and I'm interested to see how they record the new stuff.

After the Hamburger fiasco, Sam Beam arrived alone to play "Sunset Soon Forgotten" and gradually built his band around him, Stop Making Sense style. My amigo joined him on bass for awhile, then yielded to the eventual repopulation of the stage with Calexico people, one at a time. Beam did "The Trapeze Swinger" by himself to the shocked-out-loud delight of someone in the front row, strummed along with the drummer's chest-shaking thump on "Free Until They Cut Me Down," and eventually found himself fronting the full Calexico band as well as his own group on "He Lays In The Reins," at which point the show finally settled into a real groove.

By this point there were eleven people up there. Reedman Ralph Carney, a veteran of several Tom Waits records, found a place on several songs. The two drummers simplified their cross-rhythms until they sounded like one mind (just like on Jazz Samba), and the three singers up front found the magic harmonies for "Prison on Route 41," "History of Lovers" (though Beam forgot the words to the latter) and all the other fine pieces on the new record.

The blurb said there'd be covers. The last thing I expected to hear was a relative-minor-key version of the Drifters' "Save The Last Dance For Me," but damned if Beam and his sister didn't pull it off. Guest guitarist Mark Kozelek nearly ruined a pretty nice arrangement of "All Tomorrow's Parties," but the piece righted itself with a fiery guitar finish. And eventually, the encore featured a wistful, luminous reading of "Wild Horses," perfectly in step with the tenor of the evening.

I suspect Beam may have to stretch out his subject matter one day. I wonder if he's starting to repeat himself a little bit -- "tell mother not to worry," "father's body," dogs in crisis -- but at the moment I still find his tender songs compelling. (Last time I&W played here, my friend thought "Upward Over The Mountain" was eye-rollingly hokey, but I think he's in the minority on that one.) Just as Calexico may be finding out with its sounds and textures, Beam may need to expand beyond his the niche he's been living in for a few years now. People will always want an artist to say new things. "Trapeze Swinger" is a stunner, but he can't write it twice. You can always work with new musicians, but it's tough to move on to whole new ideas.


FMFM: CTI Records' California Concert. I'm not sure I need Hubert Laws' jazz flute version of "Fire & Rain," but Freddie Hubbard's "Red Clay" (ack! split between Sides One and Two!) and Stanley Turrentine's "Sugar" are rather ass-kicking. George Benson takes some nice turns too.

Dressing dirty dirty

After watching the travesty in Chicago last night, I made my way down to the Great American Music Hall for a little Dirty Three. (In between, I warmed up at Ha-Ra, home of the City's most cantankerous bartender now that the guy at the Persian Aub Zam Zam Room has passed. Ha-Ra's bartender was not so amused by the endless repetition of the Josh Paul event.)

Quick hit on the D3: Australians. Amplified violin, guitar and drums. And there's a Dirty Fourth, who plays mandolin and bass. All instrumental, all the time. I've actually seen them once before -- it was probably 1998, and I was there primarily to see the opening act. They were a little two-piece from Tucson that used to be Giant Sand's rhythm section, and had just released their second album. Whatever happened to them, anyway?

There were times when I thought I was hearing music from the Windham Hill catalog, and there were times I thought I was at a Sonic Youth show. There were even some Zep-like moments. The drummer reminded me of Elvin Jones, though it may be becoming a cliché to say that about drummers. (We watched his reflection in a mirror most of the night due to an unusual seating arrangement at the GAMH.) The violinist talked a great game in between songs -- he made you wonder why he doesn't write lyrics, in fact -- but also played with his back to the audience virtually throughout the show. The guitar player was often the only person who held the music together, filling out the sound with arpeggiated structures, frequently with odd-timed riffs. He's the kind of player that really needs all six strings, if you know what I mean. The Dirty Fourth sometimes played lead, sometimes added flesh at the bottom of the sound.

The D3 seemed to spend as much time playing arrhythmically as playing to any specific meter. The spacey sections of their songs did go on rather long. I can't recall a single hook or melody from the entire night. And yet I left fully satisfied. The overall sound can sweep you away, and can be physically fulfilling. I was totally bushed by the end of the night -- and even skipped the encore, which I almost never do -- but I don't feel like I left lacking at all.

There was one rather telling moment during a pause between songs. People shouted out requests, and one guy near me asked them to "play the first song on Horse Stories, whatever that one's called." This is the way people call out requests at Dirty Three shows, apparently: in complete sentences, without knowing the titles of the songs.


FMFM: The Chambers Brothers' The Time Has Come, which is much stronger than I ever would have expected

In media res

Today I'm looking for songs whose lyrics begin with the word "and," as if the songwriter begins in the middle of a thought.

Here are three:

"It Makes No Difference" by The Band
"Walk Away Renée" by The Left Banke
"Andmoreagain" by Love

Who's got one? I can't decide whether starting a song with "and" is a provocative device that can add a lot of meaning, or merely a trite conceit worthy of a second-semester poetry class.

Yeah, I know, I'm full of terribly interesting stuff today. Must be almost as fascinating as my mental list of songs that end with a tambourine shaking over the dying final chord. But help me out, will ya?


FMFM: Rick Danko's magnificent lead vocal on the Last Waltz version of "It Makes No Difference." Robbie's guitar parts are pretty great too. It's hard to believe they were on enough cocaine to kill a rhinoceros.

El pulpo's ghost

"In the end, he just went out there and had a lot of fingers."

FMFM: Mulligan/Baker

OMG u r my BFF

Life imitates parody.

[UPDATE: CNN just featured the parody blog on The Situation Room. "We didn't think we were going to show you this one, but it really does look a lot like the memos," said the broadcaster.]


FMFM: The Gerry Mulligan Quartet's What Is There To Say?, featuring ahead-of-its-time bass work by Bill Crow

Open the window, Aunt Minnie

Just a few weeks ago, I was prattling on about the Atlanta Braves and their memorable 19-inning game against the Mets in 1985. Yesterday, the Braves were involved in an 18-inning contest of greater significance -- one that eliminated them from the playoffs.

Now comes a piece of news even more improbable than Roger Clemens' relief win: the word from Houston that the same person caught both Lance Berkman's eighth-inning grand slam and Chris Burke's game-winning shot just 17 short hours later. Holy Toledo, as Bill King might say.

And I'm happy to see that unlike some greedy bastards, it appears he's going to give the historic ball back to the player who hit it.


FMFM: The Oscar Peterson Trio's spin on West Side Story

Out where the land is as flat as the sea

I always hate to see artwork vandalized, especially when the vandals take fourteen shoes, all for right feet. But did they have to spray-paint the words "Dumb" and "Dum Dum" on Prada Marfa?

It does seem like a really cool sculpture. Or whatever it is.


FMFM: Clifford Brown's deliberate "I Don't Stand A Ghost Of A Chance With You"

"That's nitpicking, is'nt it?"

Maybe you saw the "I'ts our turn" sign hanging from the upper deck at U.S. Cellular Field (née Comiskey Park) the other night during the White Sox-Red Sox tilt. Obviously someone at BostonDirtDogs.com saw it, and seized another opportunity to mock a poor Chicago-area speller. [Amusing as it is, that may be the only satisfaction Red Sox fans get this postseason.]

I also love the sign in front of a dollar store on Clement Street near Green Apple Books that reads:

"Smile, your saving"
alot of money

Now, I realize that the sign is in a neighborhood full of non-native English speakers. I hate to make fun of language barriers -- okay, sometimes I like to make fun of language barriers -- but there's just so much wrong with that one, I can't help but be amused. Sorry.

As I mentioned once before, I collected baseball cards as a kid. There was a memorabilia dealer in the local flea market who had a 1967 Whitey Ford for sale, with a sticker on the protective plastic sheet that said "Hi's last card". Huh? I mean, yeah, it's possessive. But "hi's"? I've always remembered that one through the years. I think the guy was Armenian or something.

This, too, is "funny," even if they haven't updated it in almost five years. And, unforgettably, there's the sign in front of Donna' s Diner in Battle Mountain, Nevada. ("If there exists in America a more eloquent testament to the Jughead shrug, a better paean to intellectual lassitude and inertia, I demand to see it," says Gene Weingarten.)


FMFM: Bob Marley's Uprising

Dropping some science

Forgive me for this post -- really -- but I just saw something on television that I couldn't believe.

It was an advertisement for the Shark Power Scooper, a battery-operated sweeping device that bags up whatever it is you're scooping. The product is displayed scooping up spilled food, broken glass, and some other messes. And then... dog shit. Yes, there's dog shit, or something that looks an awful lot like dog shit, in the ad. Can you believe it? Somebody put dog shit in a TV commercial.

The person cleaning it up makes an awful face too.

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming. I just had to share that.


FMFM: The deeply weird, swampy, addictive "Mama Roux," from Dr. John's wigged-out Gris Gris album

"Mark it 8, dude"

"I'd rather know Jimmie Dale Gilmore than the pope."

Uncle Warren, the man who gave us that fun weekend, speaks again. I think I enjoyed the J.D. Crowe set the best. The most touching moment was Doc Watson's insertion of a subtle reference to his late son Merle in "I Am A Pilgrim." I'm not sure if he's always done it that way. Other highlights for me included Del McCoury's excellent set, Dr. Ralph, Los Super Seven, and Earl Scruggs.

I left before Dolly Parton -- that side stage turned into an absolute circus before showtime -- but it's hard to believe 200,000 people were there. That's almost half a Woodstock.

High on the hog

How embarrassing for BushCo. It's going to be an expensive winter.

Every little bit helps, I guess. But I think I'm going to hate that hog.


FMFM: Beethoven piano concerto No. 5, the "Emperor"